Labrinth

[linebaugh]

(i have no idea what the music posted in this thread sounds like yet btw)

do you remember when we were eating ramen and suspended went 'oh this song is great' and we just sat there politely holding our tongues and then it ended up being the euphoria theme song? its that song

 

[linebaugh]

unfortunately we live in an awkward transitional phase in the history of western music. to put it very very crudely, timbre (“production quality”) is increasingly important whereas harmony (“music theory”) is increasingly unimportant. but arriving at, say, wagner's understanding of harmony took at least a millennium and in the west we’ve only really started to explore timbre within the last 50-70. to the frustration of pierre schaeffer, no one's yet been able to tame these possibilities into a coherent musical language. it may take thousands of years.

given how unknown the territory is, it’s no surprise that most pop musicians fumble with the new timbral options in a very tepid and superficial way. resulting in special fx music. unable or unwilling to extrapolate beyond their immediate cultural surroundings, they confusedly cling to an unexamined, increasingly vestigial division between “music” and “sound effects”—one which no doubt appeared quite clear cut back when daniel burnham ruled your city and “after the ball” was the most popular song in the world. but these categories are wildly inadequate tools in the contemporary musical landscape.

excellent

 

[mvuent]

do you remember when we were eating ramen and suspended went 'oh this song is great' and we just sat there politely holding our tongues and then it ended up being the euphoria theme song? its that song

yeah but i wasn't listening to the music i was too concerned with trying to figure out how to use chopsticks

 

[linebaugh]

thats right you dropped your chop sticks on the floor and then pawed at your noodles with the big clumsy spoon

 

[sus]

Important mvuent firsts on the chicago trip:
- ramen
- taco bell
- contact high/hotbox high
- riding a subway/train
- petting a rat

 

[sus]

yeah but i wasn't listening to the music i was too concerned with trying to figure out how to use chopsticks

He's trying to be amicable and not alienate anyone; he actually really really likes Labrinth, especially "Mount Everest"

 

[IdleRich]

@suspended this was the first BIG tune that he had as a producer and he co-wrote it, then and now i feel like Tinie's really a non presence on the tune and it's more about the beat and how it switches up near the end
but after that and a couple other hits with people like Professor Green and Loick Essien, he got signed to Syco and things just picked up even more for him from there.

so you gonna watch Euphoria then? don't worry about feeling embarassed to watch it as a grown man ALOT of people did and there was alot of hand wringing over whether the stuff it was depicting was endorsing them, how it wasn't that much different to Skins or how absurd some of the music picks were(i think the correct term is needle drops but whatever)

I enjoyed the first series of Euphoria well enough. Never thought about being embarrassed as a grown man - possibly cos of the perennial problem in American films that most of the "teenagers" look as though they are about thirty-five...

My main issue with the show was again to do with the restrictions or whatever of the format. I think that there was a good story in there but they stretched it out way too long, many pointless montages and so on which seemed to have no purpose other than to make the programme last the standard eight or ten episodes. Similarly the action ground to a halt for ages and picked up in the last episode to give you a cliffhanger and pull you back for the second series. It was this blatant manipulation of the viewer that has stopped me watching the second series as of yet.

 

[IdleRich]

Here's another example of dance music that has this feeling:
Does jungle ever reach such heights? Wrong

What's confusing to me is why you choose to call these "dance music"?

 

[thirdform]

unfortunately we live in an awkward transitional phase in the history of western music. to put it very very crudely, timbre (“production quality”) is increasingly important whereas harmony (“music theory”) is increasingly unimportant. but arriving at, say, wagner's understanding of harmony took at least a millennium and in the west we’ve only really started to explore timbre within the last 50-70. to the frustration of pierre schaeffer, no one's yet been able to tame these possibilities into a coherent musical language. it may take thousands of years.

given how unknown the territory is, it’s no surprise that most pop musicians fumble with the new timbral options in a very tepid and superficial way. resulting in special fx music. unable or unwilling to extrapolate beyond their immediate cultural surroundings, they confusedly cling to an unexamined, increasingly vestigial division between “music” and “sound effects”—one which no doubt appeared quite clear cut back when daniel burnham ruled your city and “after the ball” was the most popular song in the world. but these categories are wildly inadequate tools in the contemporary musical landscape.

Indeed. What I've been saying for years. good write up, you should make a book out of this.

In Turkish music a whole tone is divided in nine, in nine equal pieces but we actually only use four of them, the first, fourth, fifth and eighth comma. So it's 57 different notes in two octaves. It also depends on the makam and on the way the makam goes from low to high, or the other way round. The energy of the makam brings the notes with it, so they're if fact mobile. If the makam is descending the notes are lower, and the reverse is also true. It is closer to natural tuning: well-tempered tuning is not 'well', actually. (laughs)
Even the Turkish system is not perfect, although it is better adjusted to the real frequencies produced by a string if you divide it in parts and pluck or bow it. The Turkish system is better because the tones move, unlike the so-called the circle of fifths in Western harmony. With natural tuning it does not close, it's not a circle at all. In Turkish music it looks more like an ellipsis, but it still does close, so it's not perfect. It's in the nature of the harmony: on a well-tempered piano, if you play an improvisation on A-minor and you concentrate on the note B, you'll hear it lower than its tempered value of around 485 Hz. Then, if you play an improvisation on C-major you'll hear this B higher. It is your brain, your imagination: you tune your brain differently. Composition and harmony in the well-tempered system cannot reach that. In fact, harmony has a big problem, and on that point all the musics all over the world have a big problem. We hear what we like, actually!
Makams cannot be played on well-tempered instruments. You can play a few notes of some makam, but a makam is not just a scale, or only a combination of fourths or fifths. You cannot place a makam on a tempered scale: a makam is moving fourths or fifths in a special logic, in a special combination. Only when—and if—you complete this development correctly will you have the makam.
The single notes of the makam are not the makam itself: Çargah is, they say, close to G-major, but if you play the notes from G to G, the makam is not there, the color is not there; you just played some notes, but not a makam. A makam is a color of frequencies, a logic... it's saying something… it has special feelings, it's even connected with different hours of the day, like ragas. Raga also means makam, it's very close.
Tonalities in western music also have particular feelings: C-minor, or C-sharp-minor have different feelings. If you think of the color of the scale, or tonality, you can have a better improvisation. It's not just the single harmony or the single scale. If instead of thinking what goes with C-major you think about the feeling of that tonality, or D-minor or whatever, you can improvise better, and improvisation is the whole point of jazz, actually.
If you have a special tonality which you like, are very comfortable with, be it playing, improvising or composing, you should find a way to analyze why you have that feeling. If you do that you are going to have a better improvisation. In makams it's easier for us because we grew up with them. I know what Huseyni is and can keep playing it without end, or Uşak or Bayati or Segah. If I'm playing in a jazz band, if I can't think of anything, if I'm stuck and have a moment of difficulty, I think about a makam, which makam could be close to the tonality we play in. Then I go into it and it immediately opens a way for me. Makam is a key for us.
I hear this in Jarrett. He plays well-tempered music, but in his music I hear some modal influences, not makams but very close to them. It's something between modes and makam; he's strongly influenced from that area. Western modes like Dorian and so forth, they all have names from Anatolian regions, and so it's easy for me to play them when jazz musicians play modal.
Fretless guitar was an opening for me after regular guitar, there's no limit after you open that door. It was a real turning point in my life.

Erkan Ogur / An Interview

Interview wtih Turkish musician Erkan Ogur

www.rootsworld.com

 

[thirdform]

 

[IdleRich]

What's confusing to me is why you choose to call these "dance music"?

It's a genuine question. I mean to me Dance Music in the literal sense means music that is at least intended to be possible to dance to. Obviously in the way the pop music has come to mean something different but derived from simply music that is popular, so has dance music, in fact it is normally applied to electronic music post-house that you can dance to. But even using something along those lines in the vaguest sense the tunes you opened this thread with don't seem to fit anywhere near to what you might call dance music.

 

[thirdform]

banging phrygian shit until his voice comes in which is annoying. Great coral vocalists though.

 

[IdleRich]

Funny that he mentions Kas Product in that example "Never come back, you're just a dirty twat"

When I dj in a bar or something I occasionally play this tune which is very similar and has a very similar name to that one above

 

[thirdform]

Indeed. What I've been saying for years. good write up, you should make a book out of this.

Erkan Ogur / An Interview

Interview wtih Turkish musician Erkan Ogur

www.rootsworld.com

@mvuent iowa invasion?

So I quit everything here and moved to America with him in 1989. We were living in Iowa City, Iowa, a very good place: safe, friendly, you could keep doors open and your car with the keys in, no one would steal it. Buses were free, you could sleep anywhere, it was so clean and green! There was not much of a music scene, but we moved around. With him I played mostly regular Stratocaster, but I was still practicing fretless by myself. Once we were playing in a small bar, full of junkies and drunks, with the TV on, Budweiser ads and all. Everybody kept their backs turned to us, talking loudly, you know. At one point I broke a string by bending it too far. The Stratocasters have deep furrows (scalloped Strat) in the neck and I went deep into it—sometimes in playing the blues you get that energy, and I broke it.
So I took out my fretless. It was the first time I played blues on that in America, but it came naturally to me. And the people in the club turned toward us, startled, asking what was this sound? So I decided to keep playing blues with fretless electric, which people accepted easily because it was similar to slide guitar. I met lots of local musicians, learned a lot about the blues. They say if you cross the Mississippi 12 times you can play one blues, and I crossed it 60 times so I should be able to play five at least. My plan was to move there for good, but when I was about to get the green card my father got sick and I had to return to take care of things here. I could not go back to the USA, but after a while I also realized that with music there's no place, that music is everywhere. Still my biggest single experience was that one, even if I've been a long time in Germany, Europe, all over Turkey, in Israel, in the Middle East.

 

[forclosure]

Here's another example of dance music that has this feeling:
Does jungle ever reach such heights? Wrong

ysee Gus's conviction and the responses to it that come with a mixture of bafflement and hilarity is a perfect example of something i've seen happen before with like former indie rock lifters(or what remains of the dwindling rockist crowd) who've made the turn to getting really into pop music because they got over their pre-concieved notions of it and whatever.

and its a 2 fold thing where Gus has his own specific, well thought out and idiosyncratic definiton and idea of what pop music is and can draw the lines together as far as what it is what this particular aesthetic they go for or kind of sound and impulse that they feel best manifests it.

The problem is that flat out none of these people have any idea how to boil this down or make it tangible for people who aren't them lol, you might get paragraphs of it out of them or a drawn out discussion but as far as effectivly taking these different ideas and boiling them down into like a text or a specific frame work that people can work from agree/disagree or extrapolate and and evolve and change from.

So yes from those screencaps and the many thoughts that you've probably discussed and had with people outside of here Gus yes i am certain that, that Jamie xx songs ticks every box of what you consider "dance music" is better than jungle, and it'll inspire future generations from years to come.

But on a place like dissensus where not just the reynolds writing but talking about ravers old ass and some of them still on going have been to nightclub ravers who've listened to and know the parameters and the social aspect of dance music you hear this song and its just a bass note with a faint drumbreak in the background and some whiny synth melody as it goes on, with no semblence of a rhythm or a groove and its made by the curly haired white boy who was in that indie rock band who were kind of big deal around 2009 their just gonna hear this look at your triumphant statment and think "what the fuck are you talking about? sit back down"

 

[forclosure]

and i get it @suspended i really do get it because you wanna know why to keep this on the jamie xx tip if this was 2015 and you came forward with these ideas i GUARANTEE you this would've been your favourite Young Thug song or at least the song that you would demand that people listen to in order to understand what makes him amazing.

Not only that but if you went and said to me the same thing you did about "Good Times" as you did that Gosh track i would've cooked you SO BADLY because considering 2015 was the year he put out Barter 6,Slime Season 1 the previous year Rich Gang tha Tour part 1 had come out and not to mention that gigantic leak of songs that he had made through out that time, the fact that you emphatically went and claim that the song made by some lad named Jamie which was his attempt at trying to make the kind of rap track that he was hearing on Hot 97 when he was listening to that alot, literally the BAITEST tune of all the Thug songs you could've picked as your favourite.

Of course i'd cook you like your some any dickhead outta road lol

 

[forclosure]

and this is why i asked you earlier if you were a fan of Sade & Enya because those two are now considered and reassesed major MAJOR tentpoles as far as people who like "vibes" music when at the time they were deried in some circles as being the most diluted and ever so slight examples of whatever genres they came from (new age and like soul/jazz torch singers respectivly) not only that but for some people saying that you were influenced by them is just as boring as a rapper saying that biggie and tupac are in their top 5 rappers list.

this comes as a result of all the vaporwave shit that came about back in the last decade, DJ Screw's been legitimised because of this but that's only because the stuff he did as far as chopped and screwed music casts a much greater shadow now than it back when he was alive and some of that music that's influenced by him like say witchhouse or whatever is shit that you wouldn't have expected for for it to show up in.

I like Sade but i'll never like her as much as my American compatriots do she's always been bigger Stateside than back in Britian and plus the fact that stories have come out about her spending time as a squater in London lends to this idea that there's something actually more subversive going on within her music than just being music for ad executives to snort coke to as her naysayers might've thought of it at the time.

smooth jazz,sophisti-pop like fuckin Prefab Sprout,Scritti Politti and all those really slickly produced LA rock albums from the 70s fit that bill aswell

 

[william_kent]

who can forget this scathing review of the Jamie XX album?

 

[sus]

and i get it @suspended i really do get it because you wanna know why to keep this on the jamie xx tip if this was 2015 and you came forward with these ideas i GUARANTEE you this would've been your favourite Young Thug song or at least the song that you would demand that people listen to in order to understand what makes him amazing.

Not only that but if you went and said to me the same thing you did about "Good Times" as you did that Gosh track i would've cooked you SO BADLY because considering 2015 was the year he put out Barter 6,Slime Season 1 the previous year Rich Gang tha Tour part 1 had come out and not to mention that gigantic leak of songs that he had made through out that time, the fact that you emphatically went and claim that the song made by some lad named Jamie which was his attempt at trying to make the kind of rap track that he was hearing on Hot 97 when he was listening to that alot, literally the BAITEST tune of all the Thug songs you could've picked as your favourite.

Of course i'd cook you like your some any dickhead outta road lol

You pin it on my lack of articulation, but I don't think there's ever been an actual attempt to engage with what I'm putting out

For instance, if you paid the slightest shred of attention to the descriptive words I've used in this thread for the linked songs, you wouldn't have even considered posting this fucking stupid Jamie xx song which has none of discussed traits.

 

[sus]

"guarantee" lmao kiddo. The caricature of my tastes and aesthetic motivation that board boomers put out is so laughably far off that it's not even worth serious engaging with. Don't get suckered by their cocky rhetoric and think you've got me "pegged." Not only do I detest the specific song you linked, but the vibe in general of the song linked I detest.

I don't think I've been especially subtle that the traits I'm interested in here, with these pocket of songs, center around a certain hype transcendence, half motivational half spiritual, tough yet touched by beauty. Sure, I haven't offered a lengthy exegesis on the topic, but that's because it's never gotten me mileage here in the past. Whether I effortpost or shit post, the response is the same. Dismay at zoomers, indie rock roots, poptimism, pedophilia, and my "perversions." It's a quite disappointing board sometimes, innit. Same tune over and over, always missing that the posts are half a joke to begin with. It's like triggering libs on Twitter.